Scry: Suggestions?

[Dreams]

Is this example in line with the rules?

Mr Scrywizard wants to scry Mr Metagamebaby, so he changes into his TOPSECRET Ceremonial Ritual Scry Robes and disguises himself as 'Eyes of the Abyss', and then uses scry on Mr Metagamebaby. After the special ritual of scrying is complete, Mr Scrywizard changes back into his usual everyday normal wizard robes and removes his disguise. Mr Metagamebaby tried to cheat but couldn't, confounded by the disguise. Everyone wins.

[Harkath]

That's almost verbatim what they said not to do.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I intended to make my character a scryer but I didn’t when I read about the bug of teleporting to where you’re scrying. It’s a fundamental flaw.

The bug happens every now and then. The code generates a clone of you and sends you to the player to follow them with cutscence invisibility. It is then that you jump back to your NPC clone where it sometimes has issues.

I am not necessarily certain there is a better way to handle it presently.

At present, I believe we have the ability to send illusions that run messages via the illusion spell. I have also seen "listener" NPC's on other servers that allow you to "see/hear" what is going on around your corpse from the Fugue plane/other temporary plane of residence after death, in the form of transmitting emotes.

Would it be possible to create an invisible listener NPC at <TARGET'S> location that transmits everything it hears to the "Crystal Ball" (or whatever implementation you use for the relay device) where the caster of the scrying spell is? (This would include emotes).

This has the drawback of losing the ability to visually gauge what is going on if people aren't emoting, but loses the risk of accidentally teleporting to a clone of yourself. Perhaps to supplement this you could then "investigate" the crystal ball, and like using it with an NPC, the crystal ball will give you a description of everything the invisible scrying sensor/listening NPC can see.

You could then assign whatever conditionals you wanted to noticing the sensor, be it a stealth score or otherwise (although in PnP, it's a DC20 intelligence check, IIRC).

Obviously this is work, but would it be a lot of work?

[magistrasa]

Just stealth while you're scrying.

[Petrifictus]

Scry should be removed if you ask me.
It gives too much power for cheating metagaming. Arelith would improve greatly without it.

[GwaiLo]

I love Scry. I think I use it mostly to find my friends online and run into them. I was also disguising when scrying I didn't know it was frowned upon, so I will try the stealth scry option. My character has realised that some people can sense his scrying, so he likes to be very cautious to cover his tracks.

[Queen Titania]

Is this example in line with the rules?

Mr Scrywizard wants to scry Mr Metagamebaby, so he changes into his TOPSECRET Ceremonial Ritual Scry Robes and disguises himself as 'Eyes of the Abyss', and then uses scry on Mr Metagamebaby. After the special ritual of scrying is complete, Mr Scrywizard changes back into his usual everyday normal wizard robes and removes his disguise. Mr Metagamebaby tried to cheat but couldn't, confounded by the disguise. Everyone wins.

That's almost verbatim what they said not to do.

This is actually okay. Mr Scrywizard is actively disguising, changing their appearance and name and is acting differently to the skill of their bluff/perform score (Presumably).

If Mr Scrywizard just typed -disguise and went eyes of the Abyss without any alteration of appearance, they are not actively disguising. Anyone can look at them while passing by and see they are just the same person they always were.

The Case I recently dealt with was the latter.

So if you want to scry in secret, hiding who you are and speaking differently, maybe it's a fun secret ritual where you actively hide who you are like Dreams points out, or in whatever creative fashion you want that follows our disguise guidelines.

[magistrasa]

So the difference between a rulebreak and no rulebreak is -loadoutfit? Seems... a little on the arbitrary side, not gonna lie. But good to know, at least.

[Dreams]

Is this example in line with the rules?

Mr Scrywizard wants to scry Mr Metagamebaby, so he changes into his TOPSECRET Ceremonial Ritual Scry Robes and disguises himself as 'Eyes of the Abyss', and then uses scry on Mr Metagamebaby. After the special ritual of scrying is complete, Mr Scrywizard changes back into his usual everyday normal wizard robes and removes his disguise. Mr Metagamebaby tried to cheat but couldn't, confounded by the disguise. Everyone wins.

That's almost verbatim what they said not to do.

This is actually okay. Mr Scrywizard is actively disguising, changing their appearance and name and is acting differently to the skill of their bluff/perform score (Presumably).

If Mr Scrywizard just typed -disguise and went eyes of the Abyss without any alteration of appearance, they are not actively disguising. Anyone can look at them while passing by and see they are just the same person they always were.

The Case I recently dealt with was the latter.

So if you want to scry in secret, hiding who you are and speaking differently, maybe it's a fun secret ritual where you actively hide who you are like Dreams points out, or in whatever creative fashion you want that follows our disguise guidelines.

Thank you for clarifying. I know the example probably comes across as sounding sarcastic, but I was trying to highlight the differences between the two situations.

[Lady Astray]

Scry should be removed if you ask me.
It gives too much power for cheating metagaming. Arelith would improve greatly without it.

I gotta agree with this.

[TimeAdept]

How is it "Cheating metagaming" when it is literally a spell that exists, you use, and on Arelith bugs constantly likely putting you unbuffed into the very situation you wanted to be stealthy in, lol?

[Nekonecro]

Scry should be removed if you ask me.
It gives too much power for cheating metagaming. Arelith would improve greatly without it.

I gotta agree with this.

Is the metagaming part refering to the scry itself or how the people getting scried change behavour, go silent or claim they are being scried without the appropiate feats/skills to detect it?

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

How is it "Cheating metagaming" when it is literally a spell that exists, you use, and on Arelith bugs constantly likely putting you unbuffed into the very situation you wanted to be stealthy in, lol?

Didn't you know? Stopping time with magic, that's totally legit. Protecting yourself from swords, arrows, and maces and clubs, and fire and ice and water with magic? That's cool, too. Poison? Hah! Insignificant. And any damage that does happen to you can be fixed in a matter of moments by mummifying yourself with bandages. This all makes perfect sense!

You want to watch someone? That's cheating. We don't do that voyeur crap here. If a bug happens, you deserve to die, you filthy metagamer.

[Petrifictus]

How is it "Cheating metagaming" when it is literally a spell that exists, you use, and on Arelith bugs constantly likely putting you unbuffed into the very situation you wanted to be stealthy in, lol?

Didn't you know? Stopping time with magic, that's totally legit. Protecting yourself from swords, arrows, and maces and clubs, and fire and ice and water with magic? That's cool, too. Poison? Hah! Insignificant. And any damage that does happen to you can be fixed in a matter of moments by mummifying yourself with bandages. This all makes perfect sense!

You want to watch someone? That's cheating. We don't do that voyeur crap here. If a bug happens, you deserve to die, you filthy metagamer.

For the example a goblin is seen online on the surface server doing small resource run.
Paladins see he's online OOC but suddenly their spider-senses tingles IC, they start to scry the goblin's location
and next rally a small raid army to hunt down the single greenskin until they get it or jump the server.
This happens a lot.

[TimeAdept]

Anecdotal story w/ no proof - also sounds like the inherent danger of a monster race on the surface

[Sea Shanties]

I'd like to see the current version of scry (which is of some use for locating people, not much for actually observing) accessible to anyone with Greater Spell Focus Divination and 21 character levels (like -teleport.)

Make the Epic Spell Focus Divination something more useful for longer spying sessions. Maybe the ability to scry a specific location the scrier has visited before instead of a character and be able to observe it for a longer period of time.

[Nobs]

I'd like to see the current version of scry (which is of some use for locating people, not much for actually observing) accessible to anyone with Greater Spell Focus Divination and 21 character levels (like -teleport.)

Make the Epic Spell Focus Divination something more useful for longer spying sessions. Maybe the ability to scry a specific location the scrier has visited before instead of a character and be able to observe it for a longer period of time.

i like the sound of this but perhaps it would be neat if we can have the spell none detection to counter it.

[Seekeepeek]

Since people meta game being scryed upon by playerlist. Wouldn't it be easier just to make people aware of when they are being scryed upon no matter their build or feats? so a lvl 1 even knows his being scried upon, then if -scry bug out and your teleported to the target you don't get stuck in that odd situation were people have no clue how you got there, but since they was already warned ic about being scried then it's not as big of an issue anymore.

just get a ic message in the combat log with something like
"you notice a small scrying window near you, someone may be spying on you from a distance."

[Nobs]

Dont think that helping people meta game is the anser , it would be better if the P list would not show if people are near to begin with.

[Lady Astray]

If we're going to flat out deny that scrying has ever been used to metagame, and insist that it stays because "the lore" then there should be a few ways to counter it or detect it IG because that's what "the lore" says.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Scrying_(spell)

For the earliest versions of this spell, creatures that had sufficient intelligence had a small chance every minute to notice they were being observed. This chance increased with intelligence and experience level.[20][21] A later version simplified this to the same chance for all beings with average or better intelligence.[22] For the newest version, creatures that could see invisible objects could see the sensor as a floating orb about the size of a human fist.[16] Once detected, the sensor could be dispelled by dispel magic.[22]

Scrying was blocked by antimagic field, sheets of lead, mind blank, and nondetection.[22] Other methods included the wardmist spell,[26] a weirdstone,[27] and even the semi-precious gemstone tchazar caused scrying to be blurred within a two-foot (sixty-centimeter) radius.[28]

I really think at least a few of these should be implemented if they aren't already. Perhaps have people who are being scried upon make a roll that adds their level and intelligence modifier to see if they notice they are being scried. Make See Invisibility notify you whenever you are being scried because you'd see the sensor. Maybe add weirdstones and tchazar which if carried in a player's inventory prevents them from being scried altogether. Then if someone decides to go renegade and murder someone from a faction or settlement that has a diviner, they can actually go into hiding without worrying about being scried and subsequently hunted down every time they log in. As it stands if you piss off any group of players with a diviner then you're pretty much gonna get harrassed every time you log in with that character while they are online.

[Harkath]

There's ways to avoid getting scried.

[Lady Astray]

There's ways to avoid getting scried.

Are they lore friendly that anyone familiar with Forgotten Realms or anyone who looked up scrying on the FR wiki would know about? Or is it some obscure FOIG thing that only the DM's and a handful of veterans that have played 10 years would know?

[Petrifictus]

There's ways to avoid getting scried.

Yet not all know them, cant use them or does not have them available.
Scry only ruins things and encourage metagaming. Many cool plots and plans have been ruined because someone happended to scry you. Its also used to hunt players when they happen to be online and I know that with the experience. There is others who has felt the same.

Would love to have some special item that punish scriers like the blades on the pick pockets without being in need to be warded all the time because someone might be scrying me.

IC Wotan feels scrying should be made illegal because it invades privacy. Cant visit the bathroom because someone might be taking a peek!

[Lady Astray]

Yep, and there are such items that exist in FR lore. Why not implement them? Make it so if you scry someone with a weirdstone that you get dazed for an IG hour and see nothing. That way people can actually play fugitives and go into hiding without getting dabbed on by some group of players with a diviner. Weirdstones could be rare epic loot similar in value to a Lantanese Ring or a Mithril Dust so that not everyone would have one. But assassins and high profile criminals would be likely to invest in them.

[DM Eyeball]

There's ways to avoid getting scried.

Yet not all know them, cant use them or does not have them available.

Researching the matter in game will likely yield results, at some point. It does make sense though that any diviner worth their salt would not easily give away such details, and it also serves to give impulses for in game interaction to have the mechanics of scrying obscured.

Would love to have some special item that punish scriers like the blades on the pick pockets without being in need to be warded all the time because someone might be scrying me.

Yep, and there are such items that exist in FR lore. Why not implement them? Make it so if you scry someone with a weirdstone that you get dazed for an IG hour and see nothing. That way people can actually play fugitives and go into hiding without getting dabbed on by some group of players with a diviner. Weirdstones could be rare epic loot similar in value to a Lantanese Ring or a Mithril Dust so that not everyone would have one. But assassins and high profile criminals would be likely to invest in them.

There's certainly room to improve (as is often the case), feel free to post a suggestion once the suggestion box is open again

Scry only ruins things and encourage metagaming. Many cool plots and plans have been ruined because someone happended to scry you. Its also used to hunt players when they happen to be online and I know that with the experience. There is others who has felt the same.

One thing to keep in mind here is: Things will very seldom go the way any single player or group wants them to go. That is the nature of the server, and purposefully so, to an extent.

If you feel a rule breach happened or an action happened in bad taste or due to meta-gaming, report it.
That being said, I (personally) recommend everyone to try and work together with opposing groups and their leaders, if it's possible and beneficial to the interaction. I am convinced that more friendly communication between players can greatly improve the general feel of the server and community!

I am also aware that it's not always possible or makes sense, but keeping in mind that there are players who will be wrapped into a plot, raid, whathaveyou, and thinking if it makes sense to contact them certainly has the potential to establish a better understanding for each other. Everyone should have fun, after all